Wagnerian Contexts and Wagner’s Codes of T.S. Eliot’s Poetry, 1910-20s

Abstract

The paper deals with the analysis of reception and poetic transformation of aesthetic concepts and music ideas of Richard Wagner (1813–1883) in the works by T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). The research material includes the poems of the 1910-20s (“Opera”, “Paysage Triste”, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, The Waste Land) as well the essay “Dante” and lectures “The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry”, “The Music of Poetry”. The research is aimed to solve the problem of genesis of Eliot's Wagnerianism and identify the Wagnerian codes for his poetic texts. Following the representatives of literary Wagnerianism Eliot assimilated the ideas of revolutionary art, anti-bourgeois pathos, ideas of synthesis of arts, indivisibility of poetry and music, mythopoesis, etc. The poetry of the 1910–20s reflected Eliot’s interest in a wide cultural context (Wagnerianism and “Wagnerovschina”), Neo-Mythologism, etc. The poetry of this period is characterized by representation of Wagnerian “situations” and plots (the Grail plot), themes, composition strategies (system of leitmotifs, multi-layered text, etc.), music techniques (atonality, “endless melody”, suggestiveness, etc.), the direct quotations from Wagner’s works, etc. The author of the paper suggests that The Waste Land was created as a Gesamtkunstwerk, a complex multi-level poetic intermedial structure incorporating the elements of different arts (music, painting, scenography, dance, etc.).